


Nocturne pour Tamaki

by Incessant_Darkness



Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 07:56:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8154877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Incessant_Darkness/pseuds/Incessant_Darkness
Summary: It's not that Kyouya doesn't notice himself falling for Tamaki, it's just that he prefers to pretend it's the piano that he loves.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I learned that the song that Tamaki plays in the show was composed specifically for him and that inspired this.

The first time had been a surprise, all glittering gilded sunlight and unexpected tears, a moment burned so bright into Kyouya’s psyche that he knew he wouldn’t forget for as long as he lived. His heart had fluttered and trembled with the first tendrils of a love unmistakable for anything else and Kyouya had hated himself for having his defenses shattered by the unassuming nocturne.

He had hated Tamaki a little for it too.

*

The second time had been a pleasant accident, stumbling past what should have been an empty music room of the soon to be abandoned Ouran Middle School to find himself frozen by the lilting notes that fell all too effortlessly from Tamaki’s fingers. Kyouya hadn’t even realised how much he’d needed to hear those pure little notes until he’d felt the stress uncoiling from his spine at the sound of them, washing away the weight of exams and million sprawling plans he had for the future in a simple tide.

He must have voiced his pleasure because Tamaki’s fingers stopped as he glanced up at the interruption, a smile warming his lips as his eyes locked on Kyouya. A moment later he resumed playing. From then on Kyouya made certain to never react in a way that would distract Tamaki from the music.

*

To hold the Host Club activities in the Third Music Room had been Kyouya’s idea even if he made it seem otherwise in the most roundabout way possible. The payoff took longer than anticipated and Kyouya tried not to be too conscious of the fact that Tamaki seemed far too busy in his exuberant life as a host and high schooler to touch the finely tuned grand piano that sat in a rather prominent position in the third music room.

The wait only made the eventuality sweeter.

One afternoon, after club activities had concluded and Kyouya sat running the numbers for the day, he heard Tamaki pause in his exit.

“Kyouya?”

“Hm?”

“Do you think this piano is tuned?”

Kyouya didn’t look up lest the hope in his eyes be too obvious. “This _is_ a music room.”

The first note rang clean, the next few flowing with a tripping trepidation that settled almost too easily into smooth silky chords. When Kyouya dared chance a glance, Tamaki had his eyes closed against the setting sun, and for a moment the numbers ceased to matter.

*

After that, it wasn’t so rare to find Tamaki at the piano, but Kyouya took a private joy in the fact that more often than not it was an indulgence that only he overheard. And though he didn’t care to make baseless assumptions, Kyouya couldn’t help but think that it had something to do with the carefully subtle glances he spared the piano as Tamaki came to say his goodbyes that earned him those private recitals.

Truthfully, to hear Tamaki play instilled a sense of peace in Kyouya that he had never even imagined to be attainable and it quickly became what he equated with happiness. An arrangement which was much more palatable than the increasingly common--and strictly impermissible--way his stomach fluttered at the sight of Tamaki’s stupid, carefree smiles and shining violet eyes.

*

The effect that his playing had on Kyouya was not beyond Tamaki’s notice, which in itself was remarkable since Tamaki was normally quite obtuse to the effect he had on other people. But Tamaki further surprised Kyouya by taking up the habit of offering to play for him after particularly long days at the club, or if indeed he appeared to be having a bad day in general. Each time he accepted Kyouya bothered less and less with unnecessary pleasantries until it became an unspoken part of their natural routine.

It was such an ingrained part of their relationship that any time Kyouya heard a piano being played he automatically looked for Tamaki. Even when waking, delirious and disoriented in the house of a stranger in France, though in that case at least he had the excuse of it being Tamaki’s mother.

Bringing back news of Anne-Sophie’s wellbeing ended up earning Kyouya the first private lesson. It was more a conversation than any real effort to teach, but Tamaki had insisted they share the piano bench, and side by side as Kyouya had recounted each detail of the excruciating ten day journey to track down Anne-Sophie Tamaki had watched him, smiling the whole time, had played small little teaching tunes while interrupting every other second with a fresh new story from his childhood.

Kyouya pretended to mind Tamaki’s insistent efforts to drag his hands onto the keys far more than he actually did.

*

It is a slow matter so that by the time Kyouya realised that it wasn’t just Tamaki’s perfection at the piano that made his heart flutter in unnatural ways it was far too late to do anything about it.

On the eve of their graduation Kyouya asked Tamaki for the one thing that he’d never come right out and asked him for. “Play for me.One last time?”

It was common knowledge that he was leaving to study business abroad in Boston in a week’s time and considering the hectic nature of their lives Kyouya doubted they would ever get such a quiet moment again. Alone, at night in the very music room where Kyouya had unwittingly fallen in love with one Tamaki Suoh.

“No.” Tamaki responded simply and it was beyond comprehension how he looked so resplendent in the half discarded outfit of the final host club ball from earlier that evening. Tamaki turned into the piano, the moonlight bleached his golden hair to a platinum sheen and any protest Kyouya might have had was dashed by the first note that sounded. “I will never let it be the _last time_ that I play for you.”

Kyouya waited until he was finished playing to kiss him.

*

Sitting in the airport, only partly slouched because of sheer exhaustion and waiting out a three hour layover, Kyouya stared at Tamaki’s number on his phone, toggling the call on and off until finally his finger didn’t slide over the off button.

_“Hey, Kyouya!”_

“Are you by a piano?”

 _“Yes, would you like me to play for you?”_ Kyouya could already hear Tamaki testing out keys on the other side of the line, and the scrap of the piano bench against the floor as he took a seat, if he closed his eyes he could imagine it.

“Please.” Kyouya said in that truly kind way that he only had about him when he was wrung out past his breaking point. This was the second leg of a four part business trip that had him traveling more than twenty thousand kilometers and was already just about done with everything and everyone.

The music recovered him a little, enough that Kyouya bothered to respond when Tamaki asked him perfunctory questions about the trip. Then the music continued and he hardly noticed the time passing. It was only when his plane began to board that it dawned on Kyouya that Tamaki had been playing for a solid ninety minutes. Smiling at the realisation, he let the private concert continue until the last possible second.

*

“Tamaki.”

The both of them were at a grand charity function, Kyouya had only just handed him a glass of champagne, taking the utmost care not to appear anything more than friendly which was always difficult when Tamaki was sat at a piano.

“Yes?”

“Did you ever consider becoming a concert pianist?”

Tamaki considered it for a moment and then shook his head. “No, why would you think that?”

“You play so often, I thought it was perhaps one of your fanciful dreams to be a famous concert pianist.”

Tamaki laughed, and even after all these years, Kyouya’s heart tripped at the sound of it.

“That’s not why I play at all.”

“Then why?”

Tamaki took a sip of champagne and offered a smile coloured by a blush. “It’s because it’s the only guaranteed way I have to make you smile.”

Kyouya stared for a long second, then turned heel and left before a ridiculously disastrous confession of love that welled up in him could slip past his teeth.

*

Mornings were the antithesis to Kyouya’s life. For as long as he could remember he had hated them. He hated the feeling of consciousness, of waking up, of the dread knowledge that he’d have to leave the comfort and warmth of his bed and the second he did he’d be _Kyouya Ootori_ and that came with far more responsibility than he cared to face in his half-comatose state.

Kyouya hated mornings right up until Tamaki found him the sweetest of alarm clocks and he grew accustomed to drifting awake to the experimental notes of his lover’s fingers playing over ivory and ebony in the breaking dawn of light. Then, mornings became what Kyouya lived for.

 

End.


End file.
